The official debut of Nintendo Switch 2 has been a tumultuous one, rife with emotional highs and lows – some might even suggest Nintendo has thus far botched what was widely expected to be the biggest console launch in history. I’m going to give it about as much of a temporary pass on the disastrous pre-order situation as the rest of the world is getting on Trump tax, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that Nintendo has managed to go from delivering what was the most affordable console gaming platform to one of the most expensive in a matter of weeks.
Mario has never been so expensive
Now clearly we might very well see PlayStation and Xbox start to edge pricing up on new games as time goes on here – Nintendo is, in some ways, first into the “next-generation” of console gaming at this point – but the eye-watering $79.99 list price on Mario Kart World, $150 price jump on the console itself, $10+ upgrade packs for Switch 2 Edition games, and the new details that recently surfaced on just how much it is to buy the 8-year old Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild from scratch for Switch 2 are frankly kind of wild.
As you know by now, Nintendo is going to be offering up a new version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for Switch 2 (officially known as the Switch 2 Edition). It introduces HDR support, seemingly much faster load times, upgraded frame rates and resolutions, and the new companion Zelda Notes app (GPS helper and some additional stat bonuses).
The good news here is that if you’re a Switch Online Expansion Pack subscriber that already owns the Switch 1 version, you get the new The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Switch 2 Edition for FREE (the same goes for Tears of the Kingdom). If you’re not a subscriber, it will cost you $10 a pop to upgrade either of these Zelda games to the Switch 2 Edition – this would would put the total spend on these titles at $70 and $80 apiece before you factor in the DLC on Breath of the Wild. That’s not crazy, but it’s about as expensive as it gets.
Complete Zelda: Breath of the Wild Switch 2 experience is $90
However, Nintendo recently confirmed to IGN that the The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Switch 2 Edition will not include the game’s DLC – this is not a complete version of the game but rather the same game that released way back in 2017 with the aforementioned Switch 2 enhancements.
The Breath of the Wild Expansion Pass in question here delivered Link a sweet motorcycle to whip around Hyrule on alongside a good chunk of new story missions and side quests, not to mention the harder difficulty option and some additional gear. In my opinion, it’s not something you absolutely must have to truly enjoy Breath of the Wild by any means – the game’s already quite fantastic without any of it – but at this point we as gamers are very used to getting the complete experience with these sorts of re-releases, and frankly expect it.
What does this mean? Well, hold your breath. It means if you’re going to be buying Breath of the Wild for Switch 2 for the first time, it’s going to cost you $70 for the base game and $20 of the DLC for a game that released very close to a decade ago. It is Breath of the Wild, it is one of the best Nintendo games of all-time, and you could just wait to buy a discounted copy of the Switch 1 and pay for the Switch Online Expansion Pass (which also includes a giant collection of other games to play), but either way that’s a whole ton of rupees.
A Switch 2 setup with 4 games can cost as much as $800 or more
Imagine you’re a relatively new gamer, or just someone who didn’t have a Switch 1 and doesn’t want to pay a monthly/yearly fee for a Switch Online Expansion sub. Imagine you wanted to grab Nintendo’s shiny new console (let’s use the Mario Kart World bundle where you can get the game for effectively $50 just to be fair), one of its modern-classic Zelda titles in its complete form with the DLC, and a Pro Controller to play it. That would cost you $670 plus taxes – again, that’s a ton of rupees.
And in that scenario, we aren’t even including the $50 Switch 2 Camera and you won’t get to use the all-new GameChat feature after the FREE trial period ends.
Okay, so the Mario Kart World fun will admittedly go on for years, but let’s now say you play through those two titles for the first 4 or 5 months or so and want to pick up a couple more say around holiday 2025 or very early 2026. You might very well be spending $70 a pop on those – it very much looks like new top-tier Switch games are going to cost at least $70 now – and that could put your total spend at over $800 just in the first 6 months of the console being on store shelves.
By comparison to Xbox and PS5 that’s not really all that much of a difference, but it is a difference – for example, purchasing the new Astro Bot PS5 Slim bundle and three top-tier games at full price would cost you $610.
I get it, that number doesn’t include the $20 DLC fee or the $80 controller, and you don’t need to buy the Breath of the Wild DLC or the Switch 2 Pro controller. But even if you did buy a second comparable PS5 controller and a $20 DLC pack, the Switch 2 is still a more pricey investment.
And yet, after all of that, after debuting some of the most expensive games in the history of gaming, a giant price hike on the console, and still no official pre-order date in sight…I still want a new Switch 2 and I’m (probably) going to pre-order one anyway, but I might have to save up some rupees before I can really get a decent collection of Switch 2 games.
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